# Congratulations. I used to look up to you. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 29, 2014, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-i-used-to-look-up-to-you/680078 "2014-01-29T22:36:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-i-used-to-look-up-to-you/680078/61 "2014-02-05T13:25:23Z")
I want to know what was being said about the Church of the Subgenius. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-i-used-to-look-up-to-you/680078/62 "2014-02-05T16:38:43Z")
Here’s one fairly telling excerpt: > [@](#): > > What is an “anti-AGW group” anyway? Is it a group that is against global warming? Or against global warming hysteria? It is facile to impeach evidence that tends to disprove cherished notions; that is the method of methodological doubt, but it must be applied to all data. In the Church of the SubGenius ([www.subgenius.com](http://www.subgenius.com)) we teach Belief In All Things. Not universal gullibility, but rather an intellectual respect for any information, regardless of how arcane, abstruse or absurd because it is all part of the big picture, whether iron-clad, double-blind, peer reviewed studies, or some freak’s fever dreams. …So basically from where I’m seeing it the difference between Subgenius methodology and Skpetic methodology is that the subgeniuses have no bullshit filter. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-i-used-to-look-up-to-you/680078/63 "2014-02-05T17:02:54Z")
Missed the edit window. Of course, the irony of him blaming me for “impeaching evidence” is not lost on me (he’s doing this because I’ve stopped reading the articles he links to me by Gary Null or WTFRLY). I just wrote this to him on the subject of Peter Duesburg: > [@](#): > > Okay, back to this. Duesburg is a crank. Do you what the defining attribute of a crank is in my eyes? A “scientist” (as more often than not these people are not actually scientists, such as Gary Null or Kent Hovind) who has a pet theory that they refuse to change or adjust on the basis of evidence, whose pet hypothesis then goes on to define everything they do in their scientific field. In Duesburg’s case, back when he started out, there was reason enough to give his hypothesis credence. He was Sure, the evidence was piling up that every single case, AIDS was caused by HIV, but his hypothesis wasn’t unthinkable. So what happened? It was tested. > > [HIV-1 and the aetiology of AIDS - ScienceDirect](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/014067369390421C) > The results were fairly overwhelming. In a cohort study of 715 individuals, all with similar risk behavior profiles, all 136 who developed symptoms of AIDS were in the group that had HIV-positive markers. All other factors being virtually the same, the difference was 38% vs. 0%. Unless the results were found to be falsified (they weren’t) or confounding factors were found (they weren’t), this study alone should completely destroy Duesburg’s hypothesis. And that’s not the only one. The National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, NIAID, had two different major studies in a similar time frame, the Multicenter AIDS Study and the Women’s Interagency HIV Study. The results? > > [The page you’re looking for isn’t available | NIAID: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases](http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/HIVAIDS/Research/Pages/macs_and_wihs.aspx) > In those studies, the risk of discovering an AIDS-like illness among those with HIV was 1,100 times higher than the likelihood of finding such a disease among those who were not HIV positive. From over 40,000 samples, only 16 samples ever tested lower than 200 CD4 cells per cubic mililiter of blood. This is the kind of slam-dunk, completely clear evidence that is rare in medical science. Then, in 2008, another study came out, this one examining more closely the link between various recreational drugs and CD4 and CD8 counts: > > [Recreational Drug Use and T Lymphocyte Subpopulations in HIV-uninfected and HIV-infected Men - PMC](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2691391/) > And found absolutely no effect. Of course, this was rather redundant, as a 1993 study had already shown this: > > [Does drug use cause AIDS? | Nature](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v362/n6416/abs/362103a0.html) > And while I cannot access the fulltext, you can see the first page and the “money chart” at this video at 425 seconds in: > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player\_detailpage&v=KwL26WHT8Lc#t=425](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KwL26WHT8Lc#t=425) > Same story - those who are HIV positive get AIDS, those who aren’t don’t, despite the same degree of risk. And of course, you also have every other virus in the genetic family of HIV - FIV, BIV, Swamp Fever, et cetera - all with the same pathology, meaning that if HIV is a conspiracy, you’ve either got one bizarre black sheep of the evolutionary family, or the vets are in on it too. > > There is hardly a hypothesis in medical science today which has been more soundly refuted by the evidence than Duesburg’s. He gave up a promising career in oncology to opine on a field he was not an expert in, and once his hypothesis was examined and falsified not by some shadowy conspiracy but simply by an extremely long line of observations, he dug his heels in and did everything from adding ad-hoc explanations to the theory to flat-out accusing those who disagreed with him of conspiracy to deny the evidence. Everything except actually producing evidence of his own. That is why he is considered a crank. That is why you will not find a single scientific organization in the world which endorses him or his work. That is why he hasn’t published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal in decades. What does he do? He ignores it, basically hand-waving it away as “part of the CONspiracy”. I sincerely hope that either not all members of the church of subgenius are this stupid, or that it doesn’t have many members. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-i-used-to-look-up-to-you/680078/64 "2014-02-05T17:28:52Z")
The other members tend to be in on the joke. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-i-used-to-look-up-to-you/680078/65 "2014-02-05T18:01:19Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > The other members tend to be in on the joke. Yup. It’s all a joke. There is no Church of the Subgenius. There is no “Bob.” Its all a joke, full of the yuk-yuk and the bonhomie and the meta and all that good stuff. Aaaaaaaalllll a joke. fnord ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-i-used-to-look-up-to-you/680078/66 "2014-02-06T21:33:15Z")
> [@](#): > > I’ve got three questions for you. > > 1. What does it take for you to assume someone is part of the CONspiracy? That is, what evidence is required for a person to be part of the CONspiracy? > 2. What is the goal of the CONspiracy? > 3. What is not part of the CONspiracy? > [@](#): > > 1a - human consciousness. 1b - no evidence is required for membership - open to all - but evidence of membership? Earth residence. > 2 - universal submission to unitary structural dominance over all lifeforms - more of an agenda than a goal; “goal’” implies an ending or outcome. > 3 - nothing > I hope that shines a little light into your dark little corner …I am now filtering his messages. This is not the statement of a rational individual. Yeah, duh, but this isn’t even the statement of a _sane man_. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-i-used-to-look-up-to-you/680078/67 "2014-02-06T22:20:22Z")
Why does CONspiracy have to be written that way? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-i-used-to-look-up-to-you/680078/68 "2014-02-06T23:05:08Z")
Beats me. That’s how he wrote it. The upper one is me, the lower him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-i-used-to-look-up-to-you/680078.md?page=3)